A Motorcycle Artist

A Motorcycle Artist pays homage to the inventive writer Franz Kafka by using his story A Hunger Artist as a starting point to explore what it means to be an artist.

An Homage To Franz Kafka

A Motorcycle Artist is part of a larger collection of short stories that pay tribute to masters of the short story genre. This is the first story in the series; eventually they will be collected into a book of short stories titled simply: Homage.

In other arts such as theatre, dance and music it is commonplace for an artist to take a great work and reimagine it in the artist’s own style. How many thousands of different interpretations of Hamlet have been produced over the years? Or Swan Lake? Or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony? In pop music, there is even a term for putting one’s own stamp on someone else’s creation: doing a “cover.”

But in the writer’s world, reimagining and rewriting a great story is rarely done. Charles thinks that is a shame. First, reworking a story that was written in a different time and place and making it fresh and contemporary shows the timelessness of the human condition. Second, reworking a classic tale pays homage to the great writer who first authored the story. As a people and a society we are at our best when we recognize the contributions of those who have come before. Lastly, rewriting a story brings that tale to a new audience.

A Motorcycle Artist pays homage to one of Charles‘ favorite and most inventive writers, Franz Kafka, by using his story A Hunger Artist as a starting point for looking at what it means to be an artist. A Motorcycle Artist is not a literal retelling of Kafka’s classic tale, but rather an improv on a theme. The setting has changed, the era has changed, the art itself has changed. But the underlying themes remain the same.